Science is central to modern life. It is because of science that you are reading Aleteia on a screen, via the internet, not on paper, by the light of an oil lamp. This series of articles (click here for the whole series) dives deep into the story of the Catholic Church and science. The story goes back a long way. It is still unfolding today. It is not the story you might think you know. But it is a story you should know, exactly because science is so central to modern life.
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When we talk about the Church and science and the Vatican’s actions in the Galileo case, we might ask, “Why would the Vatican care?”
We have seen how imperfect its committee-driven processes can be. Yet in March of 1616, the Congregation of the Index declared heliocentrism false and contrary to Scripture, and temporarily prohibited Nicolaus Copernicus’s 1543 book On the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres. Why do that? In the case of evolution, important ideas like the unity of humankind were involved. What was important about the motion of the Earth? Parallels between the evolution and heliocentrism cases may help to answer these questions.
The reason the Congregation of the Index gave for its declaration, re-iterated in the sentence pronounced against Galileo in 1633, was that the “false” doctrine of heliocentrism needed to be prevented from advancing further “to the prejudice of Catholic truth.” Heliocentrism was declared “altogether contrary to Holy Scripture,” a “pernicious” doctrine containing “various propositions against the authority and true meaning of Holy Scripture.” The idea was to “completely eliminate” heliocentrism, and to “remedy the disorder and the harm which derived from it and which was growing to the detriment of the Holy Faith.”
Scripture does speak of the Earth as unmoving — 1 Chronicles 16:30, for example: “the world will surely stand fast, never to be moved.” Yet the long-standing matter of Genesis 1 and the “two great lights,” which we encountered in Part 1 of this series, was a template for addressing heliocentrism. Thanks to the science of Ptolemy, the Bible had long been taken as speaking to appearances regarding the apparent sizes of celestial bodies. That logic could certainly be applied to the science of Copernicus and the apparent motions of celestial bodies.
It was not. Why not? Why did the Vatican decide that a moving Earth was pernicious, but stars greater than the moon were not?
What was at stake?
We saw in the evolution case how much concern there was in the Church regarding the descent of all people from Adam, and the unity of humankind. Even people today who care little for the Catholic Church might understand why the Vatican decided to turn loose its imperfect, committee-driven processes on the evolution question. Even people today who have little interest in discussions of original sin and salvation history will understand why the unity of humankind must be sacrosanct.
Well, what was the parallel in the case of heliocentrism? What was sacrosanct then? It seems that what was sacrosanct was reinterpreting Scripture only when necessary.
We have seen from the “two great lights” case that Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin all accepted the need to reinterpret Scripture in the light of scientific evidence. Of these three, only Calvin (1509-1564) lived to see the advent of heliocentrism. In the case of the two great lights, he gave a spirited defense of astronomy, even as it contradicted a plain reading of Genesis 1. “Astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend,” he said. “Astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.” Yet despite his admiration for astronomy, Calvin rejected heliocentrism:
We will see some who are so deranged ... that they will say that the sun does not move, and that it is the earth which shifts and turns. When we see such minds we must indeed confess that the devil posses them. ... So it is with all who argue out of pure malice, and who happily make a show of their imprudence. When they are told: “That is hot,” they will reply: “No, it is plainly cold.”
Calvin’s logic regarding the two great lights could certainly be applied to heliocentrism. Apparently, he simply found heliocentrism unpersuasive, lacking evidence. To him, it was a baseless hypothesis, hatched up merely for the sake of being contrary. To reinterpret Scripture to accommodate the theory would be religiously deranged, or devilish.
Not convinced
Echoes of this can be found in the 17th century among those who interacted with Galileo. When Galileo queried Cardinal Carlo Conti about heliocentrism and scripture in 1612, Conti replied that an orbiting Earth was not consistent with Scripture; therefore heliocentrism could only be reconciled with Scripture by invoking the idea that the Bible was speaking according to common usage of language. But, Conti warned, “that mode of interpretation is not to be admitted unless absolutely necessary.”
Likewise, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine wrote a few years after Conti:
If there were a true demonstration that ... the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me .... and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers.
Bellarmine had applied this logic to his own ideas. When he was a young professor he had argued against the prevailing view of astronomers of his time. They said that celestial bodies like the stars were carried along by complex but ethereal celestial machinery. Various scriptural verses, Bellarmine said, suggested that, no, they moved autonomously. But, said the young Bellarmine,
If then one ascertained with evidence that the motions of the heavenly bodies are not autonomous … one would have to consider a way of interpreting the Scriptures which would put them in agreement with the ascertained truth: for it is certain that the true meaning of Scripture cannot be in contrast with any other truth.
That is, the interpretation of Scripture must be adapted to science when necessary.
A third example in addition to Conti and Bellarmine is Riccioli. He argued in 1651 that,
If the liberty taken by the Copernicans to interpret scriptural texts and to elude ecclesiastic decrees is tolerated, then one would have to fear that it would not be limited to astronomy and natural philosophy and that it could extend to the most holy dogmas; thus, except in cases of manifest necessity, it is important to maintain the rule of interpreting all sacred texts in their literal sense.
Riccioli then proceeded to argue at length that science showed that there was no manifest necessity. Heliocentrism was false and inconsistent with what was known from physics, astronomy, and mathematics, he said — as seen from, for example, his aforementioned tables of stellar measurements, calculations, etc.
Riccioli did not specify what most holy dogmas he had in mind, but of course the dogma of the unity of humankind comes to mind at this point. “Are we to tolerate the followers of Bruno regarding heliocentrism?” we can imagine Riccioli saying; “If so, what will we do when they start pushing Bruno’s ideas about Ethiopians not being true people?" [see Part 3].
Unsettled science
Heliocentrism was unsettled science in Galileo’s time. There were powerful scientific arguments against it. Heliocentrism certainly seems less consequential to our modern eyes than evolution and the sorts of unity-of-humanity questions associated with it in the 19th century. What was considered consequential at Galileo’s time was not, it seems, whether scriptural interpretation could be accommodated to heliocentrism, but whether it should be, absent manifest necessity. Scriptural interpretation had long been accommodated to science when necessary, as seen in the “two great lights” case. But to let scriptural interpretation flutter in the changing winds of unsettled and obviously fallible science would put at risk things far more consequential than Earth’s fixity.
That seems to be a likely reason for why the Vatican would care about Galileo and heliocentrism.
NEXT—The Last of This Series: Some Tough Questions.
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This series is based on the paper “The Vatican and the Fallibility of Science”, presented by Christopher M. Graney at the “Unity & Disunity in Science” conference at the University of Notre Dame, April 4-6, 2024. The paper, which is available through ArXiv (click here), contains details and references for the interested reader.
The paper, and this Aleteia series, expands on ideas developed by Graney and Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J. in their 2023 book, published by Paulist Press, When Science Goes Wrong: The Desire and Search for Truth (click here).
